 Reto Gysi von Wartburg, Thorsten Hens, Gery Bruederlin, Es braucht auch Instinkt, In: Finanz und Wirtschaft, 74, p. 4 - 5, 17 September 2011. (Newspaper Article)
 
Lehren die Universitäten die Fähigkeiten, die in der Praxis gefragt sind? UBS-Personalchef Gery Bruederlin und Finanzprofessor Thorsten Hens im Gespräch. |
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Juan Pablo Carbajal, Dorit Assaf, Emanuel Benker, Promoting Scientific Thinking with Robots, In: 2nd International Conference on Robotics in Education (RIE 2011), 2011-09-15. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
This article describes an exemplary robot exercise which was conducted in a class for mechatronics students. The goal of this exercise was to engage students in scientific thinking and reasoning, activities which do not always play an important role in their curriculum. The robotic platform presented here is simple in its construction and is customizable to the needs of the teacher. Therefore, it can be used for exercises in many different fields of science, not necessarily related to robotics. Here we present a situation where the robot is used like an alien creature from which we want to understand its behavior, resembling an ethological research activity. This robot exercise is suited for a wide range of courses, from general introduction to science, to hardware oriented lectures. |
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Jean Daunizeau, Olivier David, Klaas Enno Stephan, Dynamic causal modelling: A critical review of the biophysical and statistical foundations, NeuroImage, Vol. 58 (2), 2011. (Journal Article)
The goal of dynamic causal modelling (DCM) of neuroimaging data is to study experimentally induced changes in functional integration among brain regions. This requires (i) biophysically plausible and physiologically interpretable models of neuronal network dynamics that can predict distributed brain responses to experimental stimuli and (ii) efficient statistical methods for parameter estimation and model comparison. These two key components of DCM have been the focus of more than thirty methodological articles since the seminal work of Friston and colleagues published in 2003.
In this paper, we provide a critical review of the current state-of-the-art of DCM. We inspect the properties of DCM in relation to the most common neuroimaging modalities (fMRI and EEG/MEG) and the specificity of inference on neural systems that can be made from these data. We then discuss both the plausibility of the underlying biophysical models and the robustness of the statistical inversion techniques. Finally, we discuss potential extensions of the current DCM framework, such as stochastic DCMs, plastic DCMs and field DCMs. |
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Thorsten Hens, Evolutionary Finance, In: Research Seminar, Charles University. 2011. (Conference Presentation)
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Rudolf M Füchslin, Helmut Hauser, Rolf H Luchsinger, Benedikt Reller, Stephan Scheidegger, Morphological control: Applications on different scales exploiting classical and statistical mechanics, In: 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation, 2011-09-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
We present three case studies in which we discuss conceptual and technical aspects of the application of morpholoigcal computation in medical and/or chemical contexts. Up to now, most implementations of morphological computing take profit of classical mechanics and so does one of ours (an inflatable support system for patients with movement impairments). The two other case studies deal with processes and devices on the micrometer scale (self-assembled chemical micro-reactors and models of induced repair in radio-oncology). We use these examples to introduce the notion of embodied process control and discuss how the role taken by classical mechanics in systems on the macro-scale can be adopted by statistical mechanics in case of implementations on the micrometer scale. |
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Helmut Hauser, Gernot Griesbacher, Moving a robot arm by exploiting its complex compliant morphology, In: 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation, 2011-09-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
The vision of morphological computation proposes that the complexity of compliant bodies of biological systems is not accidentally, but rather that it can contribute to the computations, which are needed for a successful interaction with the environment. We demonstrate in a simulation that a compliant, highly nonlinear body (simulated as a random network of masses and springs) can serve as a computational resource, which allows the end-effector of a two-link robot arm to move autonomously on a complex trajectory. Remarkably, simple linear and static feedback loops from the state of the compliant structure back to the robot arm torques suffice. This suggests that by outsourcing parts of the nonlinear and dynamic computation to the compliant morphology the remaining computational task is much simpler and can be even represented by some static, linear weights. |
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Konstantinos Dermitzakis, Marco Roberto Morales, Andreas Schweizer, Frictional interaction in the tendon-sheath system of the human finger and its use in robotics, In: International Conference on Morphological Computation (MorphComp '11), Venice, Italy, 2011. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
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Kohei Nakajima, Tao Li, Rolf Pfeifer, Timing and Behavioral Efficiency in Controlling a Soft Body: A Case Study in Octopus Reaching Behavior, In: The 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC2011), ECLT, 2011-09-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Octopuses have soft and flexible bodies and their behavior is extremely sophisticated. Their behavioral control is accomplished using a simplification strategy, which is based on the division of functionality between the central and peripheral nervous systems. The behavioral control is simplified since the central nervous system only sends the initiation commands to the peripheral nervous system. While the timing to send the command is crucial. In this study, we aim to characterize the relationship between them using a simulated octopus arm. As a result, we show that there exists a clear behavior difference according to the time it takes to initiate the behavior, which may suggest that the behavioral outcome is determined in the early phase of motion generation. |
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Tao Li, Kohei Nakajima, Matteo Cianchetti, Finding structure in deadtime, In: The 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC2011), ECLT, 2011-09-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
The dynamical coupling of the brain, the body, and the environment is essential to intelligent behaviors. However, we discuss the fact that most current robots still lack this coupling. We propose a methodology to realize such a coupling and demonstrate it in a soft robot experiment platform by releasing the deadtime of the high level controller. Some preliminary results, such as the splitting of the return map and the invariance of average errors, are reported and discussed. |
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Shuhei Miyashita, Maurice Göldi, Kohei Nakajima, Role of morphology on two dimensional magnetic self-assembly, In: The 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation (ICMC2011), ECLT, 2011-09-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
Self-assembly is a phenomenon broadly observed in nature where a vast number of various molecules spontaneously synthesize complex structures. In this paper, aiming at realizing highly autonomous self-assembly systems, we discuss fundamental issues attributed to self-assembly systems that employ magnetism as a driving force. We first introduce some examples from our case studies, in which the models all subscribe to a distributed approach, and thus lack central control. Then we categorize them by their type of magnet attachment. The discussed issues include several fundamental properties, such as the effect of morphology, stochasticity, the difference between 2D models vs. 3D models, emergence, allostericity, and parallelism. The obtained conclusions support our stance, which is that the appropriate morphology lightens the control cost for the assembly, providing primal but engaging instances of magnetic self-assembly systems that warrant further study. |
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Harold Martinez, Hidenobu Sumioka, Sensory System as a Tool to Highlight InformationStructure in the Sensorimotor Loop, In: 2nd International Conference on Morphological Computation, Venice, Italy, 2011-09-12. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
In an embodied agent, the sensor morphology isa fundamental element to shape the information structure ofthe sensorimotor activity. Basically, the density and the sensordistribution work as a filter reducing the dimensionality of thesensory data. The result on a theoretical model shows thatthe discretization is strongly related to the task the agent hasto perform. Moreover, we can take advantage of this relationto define the sensory system, which reduces drastically thedimensionality of the system and highlights the informationstructure in the sensorimotor loop. |
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Urs Wenger, Kann man Führen im Theoriesaal lernen?, In: NZZ, 211, p. 83, 10 September 2011. (Newspaper Article)
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Fabio Victora Hecht, B-Tracker: Improving Load Balancing and Efficiency in Distributed P2P Trackers, In: Eleventh IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing (IEEE P2P'11). 2011. (Conference Presentation)
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Stephan Nüesch, Dual-class shares and firm value: Evidence from a natural experiment, In: Zurich Workshop of Economics. 2011-09-08. (Conference Presentation)
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Silvia Grätz, Donja Darai, Determinant of Successful Cooperation in a Face-To-Face Social Dilemma, In: Zurich Workshop on Economics. 2011. (Conference Presentation)
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Christian Ewerhart, Steve Heinke, High-Frequency Trading and Market Liquidity, In: Zurich Workshop on Economics 2011 in Lucerne. 2011. (Conference Presentation)
HFT are eating up rents of slower market pariticipants. HFT emphasizes the market liquidity, i.e. if a market is relativly liquid more HFTs activity will increase the liquidity, while in less liquid markets higher HFT penetration will decrease the liquidity. |
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Mathias Beck, Performance in innovation networks, In: Zurich Workshop on Economics 2011. 2011. (Conference Presentation)
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Simon Janssen, Uschi Backes-Gellner, Vitalie Stancov, Simone Tuor Sartore, Firms' Monopsony, Gender-Specific Preferences and the Gender Pay Gap Evidence from Multi-Establishment Firms, In: Zurich Workshop on Economics. 2011. (Conference Presentation)
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Alexandre Ziegler, Kursuntergrenze - eine gute Idee?, In: Finanz und Wirtschaft, p. 21, 7 September 2011. (Newspaper Article)
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Marco Piccirelli, MRI of the Orbit during Eye Movement., In: Annual Meeting of the German Section of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine,. 2011. (Conference Presentation)
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